Quebec Premier's Worthless Pledge to
"Protect the People"

– Christine Dandenault –

Quebec Premier François Legault made a series of statements to counter U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Canadian goods and services. The most astonishing is his claim to act in the interest of the people of Quebec saying, "I want to send a very clear message to Quebeckers: no matter what Trump does, we're going to protect you no matter what and we're going to get through this together."[1]

The statement shows more than anything else that it is high time that the working class and people of Quebec speak in their own name and get on with elaborating their own nation-building project. It is high time Quebeckers reject the supreme political power being held in the hands of a ruling elite for whom defending the people means attacking their well-being, undermining national sovereignty and integrating Canada into the U.S. war machine.

Legault is swearing to protect the people at a time his government is engaged in an all-out campaign to cut $1.5 billion in health care financing through layoffs and service cuts of all kinds. Every day new cuts are announced despite the fact that the health care system is in deep crisis as a result of decades of anti-social divestment.

On housing, the CAQ government passed a law to make it more difficult for tenants to organize against big landlords who use their monopoly position to impose huge rent increases on new tenants. On January 1, the Administrative Tribunal on Housing, responsible for ruling on all housing disputes, announced that it will allow another 5.9 per cent increase for unheated apartments. This is a 30-year record high following three years of steep rent increases across Canada.

So too on the education front. Privatization has introduced chaos into the schools making learning conditions much worse, not to mention teaching conditions and those of education workers and school staff. When problems abound, the government uses "identity politics" to incite passions, sow divisions and criminalize conscience.

It is impossible for Quebeckers to reconcile their reality with the statements of the Premier and cartel party leaders. Their conception of what it means to "protect the people" is as ignorant and narcissistic as the statements of Donald Trump who life has proven has absolutely no idea what he is talking about most, if not all, of the time.

"We are well equipped" to protect the people, he reassured Quebeckers, explaining: "Critical minerals, natural resources, aeronautics, we have our assets to get through this." These are the assets he has been giving away for a song in his eagerness to prove what a good lackey he is to his southern capo. He acts as if Quebeckers don't know that the main direction of the Quebec economy is to provide for the U.S. war economy which they are, in fact, fighting against vigorously.

From hydro-electricity to strategic critical minerals, to infrastructure and public funds, all of it is being handed over in the name of high ideals. This did not start with Trump. The Quebec government already came under the dictate imposed by Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Clothed in the garb of "green economy," it dictated to U.S. trading "partners" that they must not seek to diversify their trade and, on the contrary, must wager their future on the U.S. "partnership." On January 20, even this IRA dictate was put on hold by an executive order of the Trump administration which wants total control over Canadian decision-making, not just cooperation.

In the face of the threats of tariffs, Legault said we must focus on purchasing made-in-Quebec products, tax maple syrup, and call on snowbirds to make fewer trips to the United States. He also mentioned helping businesses fiscally and accelerating infrastructure projects, including that of Hydro-Québec.[2]

And when Amazon announced the closure of all its warehouses in Quebec, throwing hundreds of workers out on the street, Legault simply declared that there was nothing he could do about it because it is the private sector. Where was this argument when he gave Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds as an "incentive" to open shop in Quebec. This includes using public funds to provide Amazon with hydro-electricity at reduced rates, and tax reductions. Legault also joined the government of Canada in giving Amazon privileged access to government tenders worth tens of millions of dollars for cloud-computing services.

Protecting the people and protecting the narrow private interests of oligopolies are not one and the same thing, Mr. Legault. Nobody except the super rich and their handmaidens are confused about this.

Notes

1. Premier Legault said this ahead of a caucus meeting of the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) in Saint-Sauveur on January 21.
2. Hydro-Québec has been providing cheap electricity to the New England states since the 1980s. This U.S. region accounts for about half of the company's exports.



This article was published in
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Volume 55 Number 1 - January 2025

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/Articles/M550013.HTM


    

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